CROPS AND CLIMATE 109
It reaches the upland and lowland markets in thick, double twists the length of a man's arm.
Maize is ready to cut in three months from sowing, though its harvest often goes on for months ; it ripens irregularly, and much of it is sown late to ensure a supply during the drought. Its stalks are also used as fodder, and the big, enfolded heads are sold green in the market, as a table delicacy. The crop is known as croumi3 (Greek or Roman), and was perhaps introduced into Arabia during the early Moslem victories against the Greeks. On the coast of the Aden Gulf, which is closely connected with India, it is known as chindi.' It is a lowland crop, as is also sesame. The latter is ready to harvest in two and a half months after sowing ; the heads are crushed in a rotating oil-press, operated by a perambulatory camel, blindfolded, that he may keep in his narrow, circular track, oblivious of the outer world.
At mid-altitude (about 4000 feet), millet is still the staple cereal but, above this, bearded wheat and barley compete with it. These crops are sown very irregularly, even in the same district. At Menakha the millet is harvested in the autumn, and even the roots have been grubbed up, before the end of the year, to use as fuel. Barley is sown in the early spring, and is followed by wheat, both being three-month crops ; but Niebuhr, the great Danish explorer, saw barley being cut up at Sanaa on the 15th of July—a thousand feet in altitude will make a great deal of difference to crops in the same district,
Arab husbandmen still use the stars to guide 'the seasons' toil. This is because the Moslem year is lunar, and the intercalation of a month, every third year, to readjust the solar compilation, was condemned by the